


The Sparks That Don't Ignite

by CherryFlight



Series: SWTOR: The Reflections Legacy [21]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Animal Abuse, Child Abuse, Gen, Sort Of, downer ending, like it's not the actual end, that moment when your character's backstory and the game collide in interesting ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryFlight/pseuds/CherryFlight
Summary: On Korriban, Oberon hadn't yet met any of the people who would support him and encourage him to grow.  He is sent to slay a mighty beast as part of his trials.
Series: SWTOR: The Reflections Legacy [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643305
Kudos: 2





	The Sparks That Don't Ignite

**Author's Note:**

> _Left to guard the tomb serving as the resting place for its master, Marka Ragnos, the beast has dwelled in darkness for centuries. Legend tells that Ragnos beat his pet nightly, warping it with the Force until it was a creature of pure hate and anguish. Starved for unthinkable periods of time and then fed only blood, it is said to be filled with an unquenchable thirst for more._
> 
> _Since the death of its master and its seclusion in the tomb, no one has seen the beast and lived to tell the tale. But the strongest Sith can feel its unnerving presence._
> 
> -Codex entry, The Beast of Marka Ragnos (Warrior)

The terantetek’s massive arm slammed into Oberon’s breastplate with a terrible _thwack_ , and pain jarred him like lightning as he was thrown into the tomb’s stone wall. Bracing himself on a broad pedestal beside an altar, its brazier burning eerie blue, Oberon climbed to his feet and looked up at the feared Beast of Marka Ragnos. He realized it could not fit behind the altar - it was smart enough to wait for him to try to emerge, and in the lull in combat, he sensed something in the currents of the Force. The hatred and anger rolled off the giant creature like the smoke from the flames not far from his head. Oberon did not need to make any effort to sense it, because the beast projected it, as if trying to force its emotions into his own mind.

The rawness of it was too familiar. Oberon wondered if it was trying to force him to feel as it did…or if it was so desperate to let someone, _anyone_ , know how it felt.

He had been sent here to die, anyway. He had shown too much of his true self in his trials with the prisoners. But when faced with a man who wouldn’t even feed them a lie to make the torture end…he just couldn’t bring himself to do anything but let him go. So Tremel sent him here. Tremel, who his parents had handed him off to. Oberon was sure _they_ had sent him to Korriban to die, too.

So what did it matter if he went mad first? He closed his eyes, and opened his mind.

The beast howled as their emotions and memories called and responded in awful perfection like a virus finding its host cell. Pain - by edge, by fist, by belt or whip - and a screaming voice of authority. Sometimes with given reason, sometimes with none but the promise of being stronger in the dark side. Threats and stabs of fear and the consuming dread of what happens next. Hunger, _starvation_ , the overwhelming desire to sneak out for food despite consequences…and those consequences being too much for a starved body. Barely keeping food down when they _were_ fed for the stress of what continued survival meant.

And yet, the need for survival endured. Somehow. Oberon’s breath had fled him and he gasped through hot tears beside the blue flame, cold, unforgiving stone under his knees. He looked up at the creature, growling softly as it waited for him on all fours. Breathing raggedly, he pulled himself up again.

“They’re still doing it.” He couldn’t bring his voice above a whisper. “Even to their own children.”

He staggered the first few steps towards the poor giant, before he reached down with the Force and made his useless foot behave, limping on it in his rattled focus. It made no move to attack, as shaken as Oberon was, himself. It only watched as he reached it, and put a hand on its crested head, feeling their presences resonate. If he came back having tamed the beast he was sent to kill, would they think him destined to be a great beastmaster? 

Of course not. It would expose the beast as a worthless guardian and himself as a bleeding heart, too weak for the Sith. Something inside him that he had thought had grown too numb to feel exploded in pain, and a sob tore its way out of him.

“I wish it could be different,” he said, backing away, nearly falling as he forgot to move his foot until it was almost too late. “I wish- but we can’t disobey. What would they do to us?”

The beast growled in bitter resignation. It shifted into a readier stance, and waited as he retrieved his war blade from where it had fallen when he had been thrown.

“Onward, then, beast. The honor of granting mercy to the victor, and relief at last to the loser.”

It was a pretty way to say it, but Oberon knew it for the mask over his cowardice that it was. Six beings lay dead because he was too afraid to speak in defense of their lives. Now there would be another.

For beings like himself and the beast, darkness was not power or passion, but conditioned fear. He felt like he had caught a fleeting glimpse of the way out, even if he and the terantetek were once again bringing blade and claws against each other.

Torment, the disease. Kinship, the cure wrung from its pieces. If it was enough, it would not be today. 

In his pain, augmented by every stab that pierced hide, hope seemed so far away, and that it was present at all seemed insignificant.


End file.
